THISISGAME, where Korean games industry news meet you

Archive for: March 2012

Eun-Sang Lee, a former CEO of Eyedentity Games, is installed as CEO of NHN Hangame. He will be responsible for all of its online game, especially PC game such as online and web board games, business and will be expected to go to the office before May,

NHN also has been reorganized a structure. P HQ take care Web board games and online games, while S HQ take care smartphone games including Orangecrew. S HQ will publish more than 40 smartphone game within this year.

P HQ is consist of RPG-FPS Game division, Sports game division, Casual game division while S HQ has Smartphone game division, Internal Smartphone game division and Orangecrew.

P HQ will launch a soccer game ‘Winning Eleven Online’ and a FPS game ‘Metro Conflict’. During the first half, MORPG ‘Kritika’ will have test phases as well.

Eun-Sang Lee was responsible for overseas business division at Webzen. In 2007, he established Eyedentity Games independently and left Webzen. Their first game ‘Dragonest’ was successful in Korea, China and Taiwan.

The game has reached monthly revenue $8.7 million in China. Shanda Games, the Chinese publisher for the game, take over the company 100%. He left the company in May, 2011.

He was connected with NHN when NHN Japan published ‘Dragonest’ in Japan. NHN was a rival of Shanda Games when both tried to take over Eyedentity Games in 2010.

It is expected that not only Korean, but also Chinese gamers will have chance to join the next generation MMORPG Archeage CBT5. Tencent announced they are going to provide Chinese version of client software for CBT5 at the press conference in Beijing.. Tencent is the major online game publisher in China who is responsible for Archeage publishing in China.

Jake Song said “I think it is important to have Chinese users’ opinions. We will add Chinese style shoes, maps and events for CBT5.” He emphasized that the main ideology of Archeage is ‘Change’. The original novel for Archeage called “Firs and a hawk” will be published in Chinese as well.

Archeage’s 4th CBT was closed on the 11th of March. XL Games introduced the original continent and siege warfare system for the first time and added various PvE, PvP contents.

Tencent, the top online game publisher in China, acquires the worldwide distribution right for SURA Online. Tencent announces it at the press conference in Beijing, China. SURA Online, developed by NSE Entertainment in Korea, is Asian style fantasy action RPG that has very fast attack and defense system like we have seen at martial arts movies.

Players could choose the one of three races and have 6 different classes. 1:1 PvP in SURA Online resembles 1vs1 fighting games like Tekken from Namco. The combat emphasizes psychological aspects as well as using various combo attacks. 2:2, 3:3 PvP are different from 1:1. Players should cooperate with teammates to win.

Steven Ma, Vice President of Tencent Games, said “Best resources of China and Korea have been combined through SURA Online and become stuck together. The contract has important strategic meanings for Tencent to advance into the world online game market. We enter into the global market including Europe, North America etc with SURA Online.”

Archeage closed its 95days 4th Korean CBT on the 11th of March and was held the meeting with invited CBT4 users and press. Jake Song greeted the audience and said the team thinks the decision they decided to have 95 days CBT was good because they fixed many issues during the test period.

Things prepared for 4th CBT

XLGames added 3 new regions, 4 seas, an original continent, the new race ‘Hariharan’, improving the shape of Ferre race for the 4th CBT. In addition, various animations for characters and monsters was improved as well.

Log-in stage has been modified to figure out the specialties of each class much easily. New monsters, vehicles, furniture, and the accessories are bonuses. Option menu has been improved, too.

Things have been added during the test period

Self-defense and Footprint system have been added. Footprint system is if someone steals woods, his footprint would be remained to report. Footprint system was not in the development schedule, but the team decided to have one because users plant trees far away from their houses a lot. Kraken and Pirate system was added, too.

Fortification and siege warfare was added later. Both are still long to perfect them, the team found many obstacles to improve.

Seonyukmari(It is original Korean words and might be translated as The end of the west) and The land of peace was added as new regions because users has complained the lack of regions for leveling up. The sign of the break was also added. It is a kind of an in-game event that monsters attacking the world.

Some oceanic items such as a diving helmet and Refloat system was added, too. Quests for the late level 30 characters added to make users leveling easier.

Aution house was added for the last to observe users’ preferable items.

There has been an item called the bomb of liquor barrel for fun, but it was deleted because some pirate users threw it to where the wedding ceremony was held and killed all users who were attended.

Fix all issues as much as the team could handle

During the 95 days of the 4th CBT period, about 2,000 feedbacks were received and most has been solved. Complains about the family system that Jake Song created were handed over to him to resolve.

What can we expect for the 5th CBT?

XL Games said they will fix all bugs they have now and improve a several things such as downloading speed for the client software, a connecting error, and more optimization. Instant dungeons will be coming too.

A house will become more like a place where users are living. Furniture items will be classified into several categories. There will be furniture for interior, furniture for upskilling, and furniture for boasting of user’s skill.

Nexon announces the sponsorship contract for a year with Lotte Giants, a Korean professional baseball team.

According to the contract, Lotte Giants athletes will wear the uniform that has Nexon logo on the right side of its chest. It is similar to the sub-sponsorship between Nexon Japan and Chiba Lotte Marines, a professional baseball team in Japan.

In addition, Nexon will have special seats called Nexon Zone at Giant’s home stadium and the ads will be appeared continuously through LED billboards at the stadium.

Besides all of these, Nexon will promote their upcoming games with Lotte Giants and have off-line events called Nexon Special Day in the first half and the second half of the year.

Byung-su Jang, CEO of Lotte Giatns, said “Nexon and Lotte has a common assignment that each needs to provide healthy wholesome entertainment through online and off-line. Both know well about each need to try hard on doing social contribution activities. We won’t let ourselves neglect our duties together.”

Seo Min, CEO of Nexon, said “Nexon has been concerning pro-baseball and we even provided the homepage of KBO(Korea Baseball Organization) for free back to 1996. We are pleasure to make the contract with Lotte Giatns and will try to make the best model between games and pro-baseball.”

NCsoft found a professional baseball team called ‘NC Dinosaur last year. Ironically, Changwon-based NC Dinosaur is closed to Busan-based Lotte Giants geographically. Nexon is developing MLB 2K Online, which is expected to be released in 2013.